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Each week a small segment of Vernon County history is published in the county papers.
For the week of 4/14/2024
by Kristen Parrott, curator
The second annual Ridges and Rivers Book Festival will take place in Viroqua on Friday, April 26, and Saturday, April 27. The Vernon County Museum and History Center is honored to again be a venue for several book festival activities.
On Friday afternoon, UW Eau Claire English professor B. J. Hollars will lead a writing workshop in our conference room. You must register and purchase a ticket for this workshop from the book festival’s website: Ridges and Rivers book festival.
Saturday will begin with waffles! Kristina Reser-Jaynes will park her Waffle Wagon in the history center’s parking lot and will sell Norwegian waffles – little heart-shaped waffles with various toppings – from 8:30AM to 1PM. Half of the waffle profits will go to the book festival, and half to the Vernon County Historical Society.
Several Wisconsin authors will give presentations in the conference room all day on Saturday. No tickets or registration are required for any of Saturday’s events at the history center.
Beginning at 9AM, Kevin and Patsy Alderson of La Farge will present a program about their book, Barns Without Corners: Round Barns of Vernon County, Wisconsin. This book was first published 15 years ago and continues to be very popular. It builds on the round barn research of June Zalewski-Pedretti. The Aldersons have ordered a new printing of their book and hope to have copies on hand to sign and sell that day.
At 10:30, David Shih will read from his 2023 book, Chinese Prodigal: A Memoir in Eight Arguments. Shih, like B.J. Hollars, is also an English professor from UW Eau Claire, where he has taught for the past 25 years. The eight essays in his book explore his experience of being Asian American.
Eric Schlehlein will give his presentation, “Forged in Blood: How One Civil War Brigade Earned its Metallic Moniker”, beginning at 12:30. Schlehlein has written two novels about the Iron Brigade, a Civil War unit that included Vernon County soldiers. The novels are Black Iron Mercy (a story set mostly in Mineral Point and Hillsboro about the life of a man before, during, and after the Civil War) and The Dim White Light (about a young Indiana Civil War veteran after the war).
At 2PM, Larry Scheckel of Tomah will talk about his book, Country School Days: True Tales of a Wisconsin One-Room School. Larry grew up in Crawford County and attended Oak Grove School. His presentation will illustrate why the one-room school was described by some as the best possible education for over 150 years, and how the lessons learned could be applied to today’s schools.
Ridge Stories: Herding Hens, Powdering Pigs, and Other Recollections from a Boyhood in the Driftless is the title of Gary Jones’ memoir, which he’ll be reading from beginning at 3:30. Jones grew up on a farm near Richland Center, and this memoir about his childhood was published in 2019.
That will be a full day of interesting programs right here at the Vernon County Museum and History Center. There will also be lots of other book festival programs and events happening around Viroqua’s downtown area that Friday and Saturday. Hope to see you there!
For the week of 4/7/2024
by Kristen Parrott, curator
We were very sorry to have to postpone our April program, but the weather was too inclement for our presenter and for some of our audience to drive here. The new date for the program about the Ku Klux Klan in Vernon County and western Wisconsin in the 1920’s will be Wednesday, May 1, at 7PM.
Over the course of the last many months, we’ve been looking at the business directories that surround the original, wall-sized version of the 1878 Vernon County plat map. A copy of the map hangs in the 1st-floor hallway here at the Vernon County History Center. We began this series last July with the business directory for the village of Victory.
And now we end the series by returning to where we began, to a village along the Mississippi River, but this time the village is De Soto. These river towns were still bustling in 1878, although things were about to change as the railroads made their way into the county. In the future, more and more goods would be moved by train rather than by boat, and the small villages along the Mississippi would gradually lose businesses and population.
Two innkeepers advertised on the 1878 De Soto directory: B. Trott of the Bay State House, and Anna N. Miller of the De Soto House, who we looked at more closely a few weeks ago. Also catering to the river traffic, Sever Anderson ran a restaurant and sold “Fancy Groceries”.
The village had several general stores. William Waldron, L. C. Larsen, and George H. Clarke all sold dry goods, groceries, and footwear from their general stores. Unusually, Waldron also advertised, “Country Produce taken in Exchange for Goods”; presumably he then sold the produce in his store. And Clarke described himself as “Also Buyer of Country Produce and Wool”. Raising sheep for wool was common in this region in the late 19th century.
Several De Soto merchants were in the wagon business in 1878. J. A. Cooper made wagons and cutters and other vehicles, and the firm of Miller and Lemen sold accessories for horse-drawn vehicles, such as harnesses, whips, and fly-nets. C. L. Ingersoll and E. P. Warne ran a blacksmith and wagon shop in the village, while Erastus Cilley and son ran a blacksmith and wagon shop outside of the village, in Section 5 of the Town of Wheatland.
The Lyttle brothers are listed in the directory as dealers in lumber of all kinds, including lath, shingles, doors, mouldings, and eave troughs. D. A. Steele sold furniture and “Burial Cases”, a combination that was once common and which we continue to see now, although to a lesser extent. L. W. Tenney is listed as an agent for Peck’s Folding Spring-Bed Cover(!). And Fred Eckhart, a name more often associated with Viroqua, had a branch office of his grain dealership in De Soto.
Some businesses on the 1878 De Soto directory were for services, rather than goods. J. H. Hinds advertised as a collecting agent and a justice of the peace, and B. D. Jencks as a physician and surgeon. L. F. S. Viele worked as an attorney and insurance agent in Prairie du Chien, but is listed in the De Soto directory.
If you would like to learn more about these directories and see the original map, stop by the history center during our regular spring hours of Monday through Friday, 11AM to 4PM. You can also purchase our book, The Alphabetical Index to the 1878 Vernon County, Wisconsin, Plat Map, which contains a map of each township, and then an index of all the names found on the maps with location information. (Note that the book does not contain the business directories.) This book sells for $12 at the museum gift shop and at our website bookstore.
The home of C. L. Ingersoll of De Soto, as depicted on the 1878 Vernon County plat map
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